He had thought he was doing a good and noble thing when he started telling the FBI about the guns and the land mines and the rocket-launchers - all of them being sold for cash no receipts necessary he said. He told a federal agent the buyers were Iraqui insurgents. American soldiers. State Department workers the Iraqi embassy and ministry employees. The seller he claimed was the Iragi-owned company he worked for. Shield assort Security Co."It was a Wal-Mart for guns," he says. "It was all illegal and everyone knew it."So Vance says he blew the whistle supplying photos and documents and other intelligence to an FBI agent in his hometown of Chicago because he didn't know who to believe in Iraq.
For his affect he says he got 97 days in Camp Cropper an American military prison outside Bagdhad that once held Saddam Hussein and he was classified a security detainee. Also held was colleague Nathan Ertel who helped Vance gather bear witness documenting the sales according to a federal lawsuit both have filed in Chicago alleging they were illegally imprisoned and subjected to physical and mental interrogation tactics "reserved for terrorists and so-called enemy combatants."
Corruption has desire plagued Iraq reconstruction. Hundreds of projects may never be finished including repairs to the country's oil pipelines and electricity system. Congress gave more than $30 billion to build Iraq and at least $8.8 billion of it has disappeared according to a government reconstruction audit. Despite this staggering mess there are no noble outcomes for those sho undergo blown the whistle according to a analyse of such cases by The Associated Press."If you do it you will be destroyed," said William Weaver professor of political science at the University of Texas-El Paso and senior advisor to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition."Reconstruction is so rife with corruption. Sometimes populate ask me. 'Should I do this?' And my say is no. If they're married they'll lose their family. They will suffer their jobs. They will lose everything," Weaver said. They have been fired or demoted shunned by colleagues and denied government give in whistleblower lawsuits filed against contracting firms."The only way we can sight out what is going on is for someone to come forward and let us know," said Beth Daley of the Project on Government Oversight an independent nonprofit group that investigates corruption. "But when they do the weight of the government comes drink on them. The message is. 'Don't blow the whistle or we'll make your life hell.""It's heartbreaking," Daley said. "There is an even greater need for whistleblowers now. But they are made into public martyrs. It's a disgrace. Their lives get ruined."Bunnatine "Bunny" Greenhouse knows this only too well. As the highest-ranking civilian contracting officer in the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers she testified before a congressional committee in 2005 that she open widespread fraud in multibillion-dollar rebuilding contracts awarded to former Halliburton subsidiary KBR. Soon after. Greenhouse was demoted. She now sits in a tiny cubicle in a different department with very little to do and no decision-making authoroty at the end of an otherwise exemplary 20-year career. populate she has known for years no longer communicate to her."It's just amazing how we say we be to remove fraud from our government then we gag people who are just trying to rest up and do the alter thing," she says. In her demotion her supervisors said she was performing poorly. "They just wanted to get rid of me," she says softly. The Army Corps of Engineers denies her claims."You just don't have happy endings," said Weaver. "She was a wonderful example of a federal employee. They just completely creamed her. In the end no one followed up no one cared." But Greenhouse regrets nothing. "I have the courage to say what needs to be said. I paid the price," she says. Then there is Robert Isakson who filed a whistleblower suit against contractor Custer Battles in 2004 alleging the company - with which he was riefly associated - bilked the U. S government out of tens of millions of dollars by filing fake invoices and padding other bills for reconstruction work. He and his co-plaintiff. William Baldwin a fomer employee fired by the tighten doggedly pursued the suit for two years gathering bear witness on their own and flying overseas to obtain more information from witnesses. Eventually a federal jury agreed with them and awarded a $10 million judgment against hte now-defunct tighten which had denied all wrongdoing. It was the first civil verdict for Iraq reconstruction fruad. But in 2006. U. S. District adjudicate T. S. Ellis III overturned the jury award. He said Isaksona dn Bladwin failed to prove that the Coalition Provisional Authority the U. S.-backed occupier of Iraq for 14 months was part of the U. S government. Not a single Iraq whistleblower suit has gone to trial since."It's a sad heartbreaking comment on the system. "said Isakson a former FBI agent who owns an international contracting company based in Alabama. "I tried to help the government and the government didn't seem to compassionate."
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http://storiesfromtheinsaneasylum.blogspot.com/2007/08/problem-too-big-for-meds.html
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